The kickoff of the 2026 cruise ship tourism season is just around the corner in Juneau. The first ship, the MS Eurodam, arrives Monday afternoon.
KTOO’s Clarise Larson sat down with the city’s Visitor Industry Director Alix Pierce to learn more about what’s in store this season and what residents should expect.
Listen here:
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Clarise Larson: Tell me about this year’s tourism season, and what can residents expect?
Alix Pierce: So kind of the same as usual. We have 1.69 million visitors, which is up a little bit from last year, but not an amount that I really expect people to notice too much. We have a new cruise line calling every week, MSC Cruises, which is a European company, will be in Alaska for the first time, and they’ll have a ship in Juneau every week. We also have Virgin Cruise Line coming. They only have a couple of calls, but also a brand new cruise line to the region.
I think the kind of big surprise shift that doesn’t necessarily affect Juneau, because we have limits and caps, is that the rest of the region is kind of filling up and getting busier. Ketchikan is almost as busy as Juneau this year. There were some rumors early on that they were actually going to have more people than Juneau, but they have slightly less than we do, which is still a real first. So, a bit of a shift for Southeast Alaska, but Juneau is kind of staying the same, which is our goal.
Clarise Larson: This is actually the first year that we’re going to see that agreed-upon passenger cap. Can you explain to people who might not know about the cap, what it is and what’s going to actually be going into place this year?
Alix Pierce: So we have a daily passenger cap of 16,000 people, with 12,000 on Saturday. And that’s down from our maximum peak days — about 21,000 passengers — and those weren’t typical. They were a couple of times a year, but that 16,000 number facilitates five ships, with kind of one to two larger ships, and requires an even distribution of people throughout the port.
So hopefully, the goal is that we’re able to kind of adjust to operating under those parameters. And the tour operators have a sense of predictability. The city has a sense of predictability. We kind of have a steady volume that we can work towards improving our ability to manage that volume.
Clarise Larson: And do you think residents will feel that? Like, how big of an impact do you think this might be?
Alix Pierce: Honestly, I hope people don’t really feel it, that it just kind of feels normal and steady. We are not going to see the crazy, crazy, busy Tuesdays in the same way that we used to on those 20,000 passenger days. But other than that, really the hope is predictability, stability, trying to create a sense of, kind of normalcy with the level of tourism that we have.
Clarise Larson: Is there anything else that you think residents should know ahead of the season that’s about to kick off?
Alix Pierce: I think something that’s really exciting is that the Mendenhall Glacier is staffed this year. They’ll be open seven days a week. They were not last year, and they’re open from I believe, it’s nine to six, which is a slight reduction in hours from full capacity, but a major, major change from last year. And we’re really excited about the ability to continue to have our marquee attraction open and available to visitors. And big shout-out to everybody involved at the glacier last year. The situation was tenuous all year, and we all worked together and made it work.
The other thing is, we’re doing major construction. We’re rebuilding the Marine Park, and so the food vendors are moving down near the Elizabeth Peratovich mural in the short term, and the new park is going to be great. I’m really excited about it, and construction will continue throughout the summer.
Clarise: Perfect. Well, thank you so much for coming on to chat with me.
